A quick round-up of decent links for GIS:
Projections vs Datums vs Coordinate systems etc: MIT opencourseware lecture notes
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Charting the eye of the storm
With the horn of Africa spewing hurricanes at us like fireballs lately, I've been paying more attention to hurricane tracking websites. For pure visual quality, information, and ease of use, this website is excellent. Another quality mash-up.
Ibiseye.com
Ibiseye.com
Sunday, August 24, 2008
The Shape of Subways to Come
One of my favorite links: Subway systems of the world, presented at scale.
Check out the physical form of the subways in combination with public transit ridership data. What is one thing the highest ridership systems all seem to have in common (with the possible exceptions of Hong Kong and Beijing)? In rather unscientific terms, they basically look like hairballs. Many criss-crossing lines, fairly small overall geographic area, incredible stop density. Though transfers between lines (or modes or systems) are often thought of as a bad thing, high frequency service, good geographic coverage, and excellent information systems make up for it. I am especially impressed by the Seoul Metro route planning map.
Obviously the layout of the city above ground really impacts what goes on below ground. However, I think these maps show that "transit infill" can help with ridership on struggling systems. Combine the transport infrastructure with transit-oriented land development policies, and watch urban places revitalize. The Atlanta Beltline project is an excellent example of these concepts in tandem.
Check out the physical form of the subways in combination with public transit ridership data. What is one thing the highest ridership systems all seem to have in common (with the possible exceptions of Hong Kong and Beijing)? In rather unscientific terms, they basically look like hairballs. Many criss-crossing lines, fairly small overall geographic area, incredible stop density. Though transfers between lines (or modes or systems) are often thought of as a bad thing, high frequency service, good geographic coverage, and excellent information systems make up for it. I am especially impressed by the Seoul Metro route planning map.
Obviously the layout of the city above ground really impacts what goes on below ground. However, I think these maps show that "transit infill" can help with ridership on struggling systems. Combine the transport infrastructure with transit-oriented land development policies, and watch urban places revitalize. The Atlanta Beltline project is an excellent example of these concepts in tandem.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Open Source GoogleMaps
I am always on the lookout for cool maps and mash-ups, and recently came across this website called OpenStreetMap.org. This website is basically like GoogleMaps or YahooMaps, except is created completely from scratch by GPS-toting people all over the world (primarily England, right now). Open Street Map (OSM) is licensed under Creative Commons, meaning basically you can do anything you want to with this technology and there are no restrictions on its use or royalties that have to be paid.
With commercial providers (such as Google, which utilizes TeleAtlas and NavTEQ), anything that you mash-up with their products, they retain the final say and control over its uses. For most public websites this is fine, although it potentially limits some really unique uses of geospatial data. It also limits mixing and matching of "proprietary" data which could best suit the needs of various GIS-enabled projects. Without going into that too much, I am inspired to contribute to the OpenStreetMap project. Now all I need is one of these, or one of these, or eventually this.
With commercial providers (such as Google, which utilizes TeleAtlas and NavTEQ), anything that you mash-up with their products, they retain the final say and control over its uses. For most public websites this is fine, although it potentially limits some really unique uses of geospatial data. It also limits mixing and matching of "proprietary" data which could best suit the needs of various GIS-enabled projects. Without going into that too much, I am inspired to contribute to the OpenStreetMap project. Now all I need is one of these, or one of these, or eventually this.
Introduction
After many, many months of reading internet articles and finding really interesting links and projects, I've decided to start my own blog to highlight the items I've found most interesting. I currently have too many bookmarks to keep straight, and need to have a repository for the too-fleeting analysis of these things.
If nothing else, this blog will be be my own personal mini-library, full of yellowed novels, pages marked by torn bits of paper and penciled-in underlines of words deserving to be repeated and remembered, a' la Carl Sandburg. Or whatever the online equivalent may be.
If nothing else, this blog will be be my own personal mini-library, full of yellowed novels, pages marked by torn bits of paper and penciled-in underlines of words deserving to be repeated and remembered, a' la Carl Sandburg. Or whatever the online equivalent may be.
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